Channel loss and inter-symbol interference are two major limiting factors when transmitting electrical signals over long distances at multi-Gbps data rates. Existing solutions focus on equalization schemes inside the transmitter and receiver chips, such as finite impulse response filters (FIRs), continuous time linear equalizers (CTLEs), and decision feedback equalizers (DFEs). However, these chip-level solutions are process technology dependent, have relatively high power consumption, and have large performance variations across different process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) corners.
On the other hand, board (e.g., printed circuit board “PCB”) level solutions may supplement the chip-level solutions, especially when the chip-level solutions do not perform as well as expected. For example, board level solutions may help alleviate the financial costs and time associated with re-designing the chip-level solutions, may be independent of silicon process technologies, may have little or no additional power consumption overhead, and may have smaller performance variations.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention, and therefore, it may contain information that does not form prior art.